The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

More Articles

The Heart of Ohio Resource Conservation and Development Council had a big impact on central Ohio
environmental projects, but its budget couldn’t keep up.

The local agency that focused on raising awareness about sustainability and the environment
called it quits yesterday.

Among the projects that might not have happened without Heart of Ohio’s involvement are the
Central Ohio Local Food Initiative, Leave No Child Inside and the Central Ohio Rain Garden
Initiative. Outside Franklin County, its work extended to Lancaster’s Sensory Trail, Marion’s
Sandusky Plains Environmental Education Center and Delaware’s Olentangy Corridor Project.

The group’s role could be as simple as scheduling volunteer meetings or as detailed as designing
programs from scratch and pooling resources and volunteers to make them happen.

“It could be a request for one-time assistance, or it could be long-term,” said Heart of Ohio’s
program administrator Traci Aquara. “It’s all about need.”

Nationally, there are 375 Resource Conservation and Development councils, including — until
recently — nine in Ohio. Until March 2011, most received the bulk of their funding from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. When federal funding stopped,
Heart of Ohio had to find a new office and new resources.

“We were undermarketed, and unlike some of the more-successful RC&Ds in the state, we didn’t
have any revenue-generating projects in place,” Aquara said.

Two others have gone idle, keeping only their nonprofit status on the chance the federal
government will one day resume funding. Another, the Crossroads RC&D that served eastern Ohio,
dissolved in December.

Heart of Ohio has limped along for the past two years on local support. On the council are a
county commissioner, a Soil and Water representative and an at-large member from each of the nine
counties it served — Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Licking, Knox, Madison, Pickaway, Marion and
Morrow. Each county and each Soil and Water Conservation District kicked in about $200 a year.

“It had some assets and some local support,” said Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb, who
served on the council’s executive committee. But the local money amounted to less than 10 percent
of the funds that had been provided by the federal government.

“While they’re well-intentioned and they do good work, they end up on the chopping block when
money’s short,” Bubb said of RC&Ds.

Their primary strength was organizing multijurisdictional projects and, as a nonprofit group,
serving as the fiscal agent.

“When it came time for us to start accepting donations, it became a problem for us,” said John
Bosser, community-outreach coordinator for the Fairfield County Board of Developmental
Disabilities, which owns the property for the Sensory Trail and provides insurance. “We couldn’t
accept tax-deductible donations. We’re a government agency, and so were most of our other
partners."

Amy Dutt, owner of Urban Wild, an ecological-landscape-design firm, worked with Heart of Ohio on
the Olentangy Corridor Project, educating landowners and local officials about streamside
development. Heart of Ohio’s demise “leaves a hole,” Dutt said, “and I’m not sure who will fill
it."

Groups such as the Sierra Club do similar work in certain areas, while the Ohio State University
Extension service or the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission might fulfill its role in others.
None completely provides the one-stop organizing capabilities that Heart of Ohio provided.

“The beauty is, we helped a lot of people and projects, and it was really grassroots-inspired,”
Aquara said.